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R E P O U T 



ON A MEMORIAL 



THE AUMM OF DARTMOrTlI COLLEGE, 



AT BOSTON AND Tilt: VICINITY, 



TO THE TRUSTEES; 



SCHOLARSHIPS AND PRIZES. 



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BOSTON: 
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. 

1858. 



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CAMBRIDGE: 
ALLEN AND FARNHAM, PEINTEES. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 



At the Annual Meeting of tlie Tkustees of Daktmoutii Col- 
lege, at Commencement, 1857, a Memorial, from the " Association 
OK THE Alumni residing in Boston and the Vicinity," was 
prostMittMl to the Board, and referred to a Special Committee. 

'J'he Report of that Committee was laid before the Trustees at an 
adjourned meeting, November 30th ensuing, and, after attentive con- 
sideration, was adopted, with its accompanying Resolutions. 

The Trustees now publi;;h these papers, for the sake of greater 
convenience in explaining to tlie Alumni, and other persons desirous 
of such information, the principles on w^hich, for some years past, they 
have ordered the government and discipline of the College. 

The occasion which has led to the publication, and virtually 
required it, will be at once perceived by the reader. The Trustees 
might not have chosen it ; but they use it not reluctantly, for justify- 
ing the somewhat peculiar but honest views which they have, in 
general, entertained, of a question that deeply affects the interests of 
learning and religion. 

They have no pleasure in the mere singularity of their position. 
But equally they have no wish to witlihold the reasons of it. If in 
error, they would be corrected ; but that is, of course, impossible, till 
they make themselves soundly understood. 



The pamphlet concerns especially certain distinguished Alumni of 
the College. But the subject of it is of more public consequence ; 
and it is accordingly commended to the friends of Christian education 

in general. 

N. LOKD. 
Dartmouth College, Jan. 1, 1858. 



M EM II 1 A L. 



At a ((uariorly meeting of "The Association of tiik Allmni 
OK Dartmouth College, uesidino in Boston and the Vicin- 
ity," lioldcn April 8th, 1857, the following Resolutions were unani- 
mously adopted. They were duly presented, at the next ensuing 
Conimcnceraent, as a memorial to the Trustees : — 

ResoJved, That a Committee of five be appointed to confer 
with the President and Faculty of the College, and, with their 
approval, at Commencement, with the Board of Trustees, upon tlie 
expediency of establishing a system of scholarships and prizes for 
the encouragement and reward of superior merit. 

If such a system should be deemed expedient by the President, 
Faculty, and Trustees, then 

Resolved, That it be respectfully suggested by this Committee, 
(1) whether the income of the Second College Grant, so called, 
designed for the aid of young men from New Hampshire, would 
not be best appropriated to them in scholarships and prizes for 
merit, if the terms of the grant would so allow ; (2) whether the 
income from the town of "Wheelock might not be appropriated in 
like manner to young men from Vermont; (3) whether the gratu- 
ities from the Chandler Fund would not be best awarded upon 
-imilar principles ; and (4) whether regard should not be paid to 
-oholarship in distributing the proceeds of the funds for the aid oft 
-tudcnta preparing for the Ministry. 



6 



Resolved, That it be also suggested, whether these scholarships 
and prizes would not be most useful, if they should be awarded 
from year to year, upon special examination in particular depart- 
ments by disinterested committees; and whether the best time for 
such an exammation would not be the commencement of the Spring 
term. 

Resolved, That it be proposed for consideration, (1) whether 
generous individuals, zealous for the cause of learning and educa- 
tion, might not be pleased to establish such scholarships or prizes, 
giving to them their own or other names, and specifying the con- 
ditions of their bestowal; (2) whether the members of graduated 
classes might not wish to establish, in like manner, class scholar- 
ships or pi-izes ; (3) whether the friends of some of our Academies 
or High Schools would not unite in founding scholarships for the 
most worthy students entering College from those academies or 
schools ; and (4) whether it would not be expedient that such 
scholarships and prizes as are specified in this resolution should, 
for the most part, be established for a limited number of years, so 
that the immediate benefit derived from them should not be con- 
fined to the mere interest of a funded sum. 



REPORT. 



A MEMORIAL of '' TlTE ASSOCIATION OF THE AlUMXI RESID- 

INQ IN Boston and the Vicinity," proposing "a system 
of scholarships and prizes for the encouragement and 
reward of superior merit," at Dartmouth College, having 
been duly communicated, through the President and 
Faculty, to the Trustees, and having been referred by 
them to a Special Committee, that Committee beg leave 
respectfully to report : — 

That the magnitude of the subject in hand, and its 
bearings upon the interests of the College and of 
education in general, as well as the distinguished char- 
acter of the Memorialists, give great consequence to the 
Resolutions which they have submitted, and call for the 
attentive consideration of the Trustees. 

The Memorialists, in their second Resolution, suggest 
to the Trustees diverse methods by which the proposed 
system of scholarships and prizes may be establi.shed. 
But, without reference, at present, to any previous 
ciuestioii concerning the proj^riety of such a system 



8 



on general gronndn, tlic pnrticnlnr metliodH suggested 
by the Memoriali.stH, in tluit RcHolution, seem to your 
Committee liable to serious objections : — 

I. It is suggested by the Memorialists, " Wlietlier 
the income of the Second College Grant, so called, 
designed for the aid of .young men from New Hamp- 
shire, would not be best appropriated to them in scholar- 
ships and j)rizes for merit, if the terms of the grant 
would so allow ? " 

In the judgment of your Committee, the terms of 
the grant virtually forbid such an appropriation. That 
instrument provides that the income of the property 
granted shall be perpetually for indigent ^'^oung men, 
the sons of indigent parents in the State ; and the 
proposed appropriation would be clearly objectionable, 
because — 

(1) There would be logical violence in substituting 
best scholars for indigent scholars. The terms, and the 
ideas represented, are not equivalent and interchange- 
able. 

(2) The best scholars might not be, and probably 
in many instances would not be, indigent scholars. 
In such cases there would be, practically, a perversion 
of the funds from their literal designation. 

(3) The scholars gaining prizes would necessarily be 
few. The indigent who receive this charity, agreeably to 
the terms of the grant, are many : — * the poor we have 
alwnys with us.' To encourage such persons in their 
conuncndable pursuit of knowledge under difficulties 



9 



was the evident design of the grant. That benevolent 
design would he counteracted by excluding the greatest, 
for tlie benefit of the smallest, number. 

(4) The indigent young men who would fail of the 
benefit of the funds might be morally more worthy 
than the few who would receive it This is accordinjr 
to frequent experience. Whether it is likely to jje so, 
in general, from applying the educational stimulus 
exclusively or mainly to the intellect, is not now 
material. But whenever such cases should occm-, the 
College would appear to place a higher estimate upon 
intellectual than upon moral worth ; and virtue would 
be likely to lose ground under such discouragement. 
An ultimate probable consequence would be a letting 
down of the standard of scholarship itself, smce true 
learning, not less than other valuable properties of men, 
when dissociated from virtue, is likely to decline. Such, 
at least, would be the probable judgment of some 
pei*soiis who have an indirect interest in the appropri- 
ation of this public charity ; and it would constitute 
a serious objection. 

(5) The indigent young men who now receive this 
l^enefit generally have the fewest advantages in early 
life. The rich, brought up at the best schools, go 
before them in the first stages of the College coiu'se. 
But at the end, or subsequently in puljlic life, the 
tuldes are turned. The rich, especially when fed with 
prizes, tire, and are overtaken and left behuid. Expe- 
rience has taught this largely at this College. We look 



10 



for those who have been heavily burdened, and made 
slow progress at the beginning, to stand under the 
heaviest responsibilities in the end. It is of doubtful 
expediency to increase their early discouragements by 
giving their bread to those who, even in an intellectual 
point of view, are not likely to equal them in the run 
of life. 

(6) Many of the best citizens distrust the wisdom of 
any system of prizes, in a course of Christian education. 
Let it be that these persons are over-scrupulous and 
unwise. Yet they would be none the less hkely, on 
that account, to be dissatisfied with what would seem 
to them a deviation from the terms, and evident design, 
of the grant. The College would lose their confidence. 
They might bring it into question before the Legisla- 
ture of the State ; and the profit and loss account, in 
such a controversy, would probably be against it. 

11. The Memorialists suggest, in the same Resolu- 
tion, a similar appropriation of the income of the 
town of Wheelock to young men from Vermont. 

In one respect the Vermont and New Hamj)shire 
grants are not parallel. Vermont gave to the College 
a moiety of the township of Wheelock, for general 
purposes ; the New Hampshire grant contemplated the 
specific benefit of indigent students belonging to the 
State. 

But it is questionable whether a grant, originally 
made for general purposes, and used accordingly for 
more than half a century, and still requisite to meet 



11 



tlio current expenses of the College, could now be 
rlu'litfully scijuestered to specific uses which are not 
siji^nified in the deed of gift, and are not necessary to 
the direct support of the institution, or likely ever 
to be materially beneficial in that respect. 

If this could be done rightfully, yet, in the judgment 
of your Committee, it would l^e of douljtful expedi- 
ency : — 

(1) Because the right is not self-evident; and seri- 
ous questioning anil litigation, without a sufficient off- 
setting advantage, might ensue. 

(2) In view of the delicate relations of the College 
to the St<ate of Vermont : — Many of the citizens of 
that State have been jealous of the benefit, small 
though it be, which the College has derived from what 
they judge to have been an unwise act of an early 
Legislature niuler a peculiar pressure. The College 
has been drawn by them before the courts to vindi- 
cate its chartered rights ; and attempts have been made 
In draw it before the Legislature, upon very inconsider- 
aljle grounds. An occasion like that suggested by the 
Memorialists might revive the jealousy now meas- 
in-ably allayed, and lead to renewed controvei'sy. And 
this difficulty would not be relieved by the considera- 
tion that the income of Wheelock would then be 
applied to students from Vermont : For, 

(3) Such an application might be construed as a lure 
to young men of Vermont to seek their education at 
Dartmouth rather than at the Colleges of their own 



12 



State. This would naturally give rise to jealousies in 
higher circles, and the College might seem to be invidi- 
ously, as it is not, a competitor, rather than a co-worker, 
as it is, with these sister institutions. Unworthy strife, 
instead of the present friendship, would be likely to 
ensue. 

III. The Memorialists propose a similar use of the 
so called Charity Funds. 

These funds were all asked and given for the aid 
of indigent and pious young men, preparing for the 
Gospel ministry, and not for a few of the best scholars 
among them. There is no evidence that the donors 
thought of such an apj)lication of their charity. It is 
not probable that all would have consented to give 
their money for that purpose. Many religious people 
question, upon high authority, whether those ministers 
of the Gospel are best who are most distinguished 
for "excellency of speech and of wisdom." It is not 
probable that such jDcrsons would have consented to 
establish a system which should even seem to imply 
that the best scholarship is the test of superior merit 
in a class of men whom they are in the habit of think- 
ing lest when they determine " to know nothing save 
Jesus Christ, and him crucified," and who, by the 
foohshness of preaching, are said to benefit the greatest 
number of mankind. These funds are recent. Many 
of the excellent donors are now living. Whether they 
misjudge or not in respect to the most beneficial use 
of their charity, it would be inexpedient to wound 



13 



tlii'ir sensihilhies, or give occasion for their complaints, 
at least without a geater positive advantage than would 
natmally result ironi the proposed change. 

As it is, these funds are now appropriated by the 
Faculty, under authority from the Trustees, to all indi- 
gent students preparing for the ministry, of good moral 
and religious character, but of every grade of scholar- 
ship that consists with regular standing and resiDcct- 
able graduation. It turns out practically, as long ex- 
perience has proved, that some who are not the best 
scholars at College become the best ministers and the 
ablest men. Mere scholarship, as it is rated at Col- 
lege, is not a necessary index of the highest manhood 
or piety, or prognostic of greatest success in life. Or, 
if it were judged a sufficient rule of merit in respect 
to ([ualification for the secular professions, it is doubt- 
fully so in regard to a sacred calling, w-liich is liable 
to siiiler most from intellectual pride, and the lust of 
social preeminence. But were the best scholarship at 
College of greater comparative consequence than it 
is found to be in the practical life of the ministry, it 
is unquestionable, that many students who would fiiil 
of a prize by the College standards do nevertheless 
become eminent servants of Ilim who calletli '• not 
many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not 
many noble," to his peculiar w^ork. Such worthy per- 
sons are most apt to need this kind of charity at their 
outset; and there seems no sufficient reason why they 
should not receive it from the funds in question, which 



14 



were evidently bestowed for deserving young men in 
general, and not for a few more gifted or enterprising 
competitors. 

IV. The Memorialists further suggest, "Whether 
the gratuities from the Chandler Fund would not be 

o 

best awarded upon similar principles ? " 

But the Will of Mr. Chandler evidently contemplates 
no such appropriations. On the contrary, he seems 
to have been impressed throughout with the import- 
ance of giving encouragement, by his munificent be- 
quest, rather to the many than the few. It was in 
his mind to popularize the benefits of knowledge, to 
radiate and diffuse, rather than to concentrate, light, 
and thereby secure a better balance of society. If 
he had meant to establish a system of scholarships 
and prizes, he would doubtless have so spoken in the 
Will. But nothing of that kind appears ; and it might 
be hazardous to give to that remarkable document a 
figurative interj)retation, thereby virtually contravening 
its literal, and, doubtless, its intended, import. 

Your Committee judge, therefore, that, though a 
system of scholarships and prizes at the College were 
conceded to be desirable, yet the particular methods 
suggested by the Memoriahsts in their second Kesolu- 
tion are inexpedient. 

But other methods, proposed by them in subsequent 
Resolutions, are not liable, in any considerable degree, 
to similar objections. Your Committee see no reason 
to question them, except in reference to the principles 



15 



%vlncli any and everv prize system in education, as 
far us known, necessarily involves. But, in this re- 
spect, as there is room to question, your Committee, 
with the greatest deference to the wisdom of the Me- 
morialists, feel constrained to express their judgment 
on the other side. 

Hut it is important, beforehand, to recur to past acts 
iA the Trustees in reference to a kindred question. 

It will be recollected by some of the present raem- 
bei's of the Board, that about a quarter of a century 
ago there arose a simultaneous questioning among 
the students at most of the New England Colleges, 
in ri'Liard to college appointments in general. It was 
a spontaneous movement of the young men, conse- 
quent upon an unusual religious awakening among 
them, and seemed a common reaction of conscience 
against a common injurious ciLstom. The students 
of this College were excited more than others. At 
least, they were more demonstrative. By memorial, 
they luianimously requested the Trustees to abolish 
the existing system. 

The Trustees gave great attention to the request 
Having ascertiiined that the Faculty would readily 
try the experiment of a change, although but two 
of tlu'm were convinced of its utility, they set aside 
ihe existing system of exhibitions, prizes, assignments, 
etc, and ordained the present system, which fully and 
consistently excludes the principle of the old. This 
action of the Trustees was thorough, consistent, and 



16 



decisive, and was far in advance of what had taken 
place in any other institution. It gave great content 
to the students. It was followed by many tokens of 
pubhc approbation. The Faculty at once found their 
administration relieved, simplified, and greatly facili- 
tated in general. The College rapidly attained to a 
degree of patronage and prosperity unprecedented in 
its liistory. 

After a few years, a severe outside pressure produced 
a degree of anxiety in regard to the prudence, if not 
the principle, of the change. Some distinguished 
Alumni of the College, and other gentlemen, remon- 
strated against it as an innovation not soundly moral 
and conservative, but radical and disorganizing. They 
feared that the College would lose its tone and dignity 
among learned institutions. The Trustees, though not 
convinced, were stirred, and again asked the judgment 
of the Faculty. 

The Faculty replied, that, although they had not 
as a body recommended the adoption of the new 
system, they had given it, as duty required, a fair 
experiment, and were constrained to say, that it had 
turned out better than their expectations. Notwith- 
standing some inconvenience, it had obviated serious 
evils, had secured unquestionable benefits, and had 
given a decided impulse to the College. They were 
not prepared to advise its discontinuance. Where- 
upon the Trustees resolved to adhere. 

Yet, after another short term of years, changes having 



17 



occurred both in tlie Trustees and Faculty, and the 
outside pressure still continuing, the subject again 
came under the discussion of the Board. In that in- 
stance it was fonnally proposed by a majority of the 
Facidty. Some new members had been added to that 
body, who had had no experience, as College officers, 
of the old system. Others had left it ; and some had 
seen reasons to change their opinions. A large ma- 
jority requested that the old regime, or something 
analogous to it, should be restored. 

The minority confidently protested. They had had 
experience on both sides, and were satisfied that the 
new system had greatly the advantage of the old, both 
in respect to principle and practical results. 

The Trustees gave the subject their attentive con- 
sideration, canvassed conflicting reasons, and still ad- 
hored. They enjoined it upon the Faculty to abide 
by the new system, and to keep its principle inviolate 
in the College discipline. 

Since that time the question has been at rest. What- 
ever diflerences of opinion may have existed in the 
Board or m the Faculty, they have not interfered with 
the regular and faithful administration of affairs upon 
the prescribed basis. The College has not suffered. 
It has not ceased to flourish, in respect to sound in- 
struction, easy and effective discipline, a righteous 
order, thorough scholai'ship, a liberal patronage, and 
an honorable position. It is beheved to be not behind 
any of its sister colleges in the proper characteristics 

3 



18 



of a learned institution, even thougli measured not by 
its best, but its average scholarship, as determined by 
lot, in the exercises of the Commencement. Its order 
has become so well settled and understood in this 
respect, that any reversal of it, principle apart, might 
be attended with inconveniences and hazards more 
than sufficient to counterbalance any supposed possible 
or probable advantages. 

But it is eminently due to the learned Memorialists, 
and to other friends and patrons of the College, to 
explain more fully the theory on which the Trustees 
have acted, and which applies equally to the questions 
now in hand. Wherefore your Committee go on to 
observe — as first principles : — 

(1) That a College is a public institution, designed 
and incorporated to qualify young men for leaders of 
the Church and State. 

(2) That the requisite qualifications for such leader- 
ship are knowledge, wisdom, and virtue. Accidental 
accomplishments are important in giving prominence 
and effect to more substantial qualities ; but these are 
fundamental and indispensable. Without them the 
pubhc interests, so far as connected with College, have 
no security. 

(3) That these qualifications are valueless in sepa- 
ration from each other; and are then likely to be 
injurious in proportion to the degree of culture. Knowl- 
edge without wisdom is insane and mischievous ; and 
both without virtue serve but to give greater energy 



19 



and cfTiciency U) those naturally destructive elements 
^vhich are common both to individuals and society. 
Virtue alone, if it could be supposed to exist without 
knowledge and wisdom, would be but an idea, or an 
emotion, and practically futile. 

(4) That the organiziition and discipline of a College 
constitute what we denominate its order ; and the 
highest responsibility rests on its appointed guardians, 
to perfect and preserve this necessary order agreeably 
to the highest standards that are known among men. 

(5) That the ultimate stmdard, binding on all Chris- 
tian educators, is the Scripture ; and their ultimate 
responsibility is to God. Great latitude is given them 
by the State ; and they are not held accountable to 
the civil authorities, in the widest exercise of their 
discretion, while they infringe not upon the civil stat- 
utes. The State leaves them to their own opinions 
and policy, within the terms of their chartered privileges 
and the laws in general. The Church has no control 
over them whatever but in respect to patronage, when 
they are constituted as mere civil corporations ; and 
it may not interfere with them but as individual men ; 
nor then, if they happen to siLstain no individual and 
pei'sonal relations to it But the Stiite and the Church 
are equally ordained of God ; and all educators are re- 
sponsible to Ilim that the comprehensive order of their 
institutions shall be in agreement with the principles of 
His Word, and thereby subservient to the public good. 

(G) That the order of a College is, /r*/, viec/uniicaly in 



20 



respect to its forms, arrangements, and observances; 
and, secondly^ moral, in respect to principle. 

(7) That college mechanism in general should have 
respect to the most perfect development of the powers 
of students, and be carried on with great exactness 
and fidelity ; that any want of symmetry, proportion, 
finish, balance, and executive ability, or frequent ex- 
perimenting and change to meet internal difficulties, or 
the humors and caprices of society, must tend to failure 
and dishonor. But that no mechanism, however organi- 
cally perfect or judiciously administered, that does not 
embody a righteous moral principle, or that cannot be 
operated in consistency with it, can be otherwise than 
injurious in its ultimate results. 

Whereupon your Committee propose, that a system 
of scholarships and prizes, as such systems have usually 
obtained, cannot be introduced into college mechanism, 
or be carried on, consistently with righteous principle, 
and favorably to virtue in young men, or to true knowl- 
edge and wisdom, so far as these presuppose virtue, 
and depend upon it; and that they find satisfactory 
evidence of this : — 

First, — In that marked repugnance of the moral 
sense which was expressed in reference to an analo- 
gous system existing in this and other colleges, at the 
time when that system was here abolished. The re- 
ligious and moral sensibilities of New England had, 
then, for several years, been more awakened than at 
any period since the Revolution. Many colleges were 



iJi-ofoundly iittl'ctcd with :i Christian spirit. Much dis- 
cussion aiul criticism occurred among the more reticct- 
in<s students, in regard to philosophical and ethical 
tendencies tlien prevailing in puhlic institutions, an<l 
their injurious influence in scholastic life. The alleged 
reason of tlieir opposition to the system then in use, 
was their experience of its Ijad effects upon them- 
selves, as measured by the higher moral standards to 
which their attention had been drawn. It wan per- 
ceived to stimulate the selfish passions; to unhinge 
mutual afiection and confidence; to exalt the indi- 
^iilual above the class, and the class above the kind. 
It fomented jealousies, hatred, vindictiveness, disorder. 
It proposed a false end of study and behavior, — pri- 
^ ate interest, — and tempted young men beyond what 
they were able to bear, to the use of questionable 
means for its attainment, — to a fawning, subservient 
spirit, to electioneering, bribery, convivial entertain- 
ments, and a disproportionate culture of the faculties 
on the part of some, which led to wanton neglect on 
the part of others ; — producing, on the one hand, the 
evils of gratified ambition, and, on the other, the 
greater evils of disappointment and supposed disgrace, 
which reached beyond the students themselves to tlieir 
families and friends. These evils were judged to be 
not accidents of the system, which wisdom might over- 
rule, but essential, because of the consciously depraved 
character of the mind, and its consequent liability to 
give way under such dangerous pressure. No suf- 



22 



ficient offsets were seen in the improved scholarship 
of a few competitors, if, indeed, such improved scholar- 
ship were not imaginary, affected and not real; or, if 
real, not attainable equally upon a more moral system ; 
or, as if a higher general average of scholarship were 
not more desirable than the disproportionate advance- 
ment of the few and discouragement of the many. A 
temptation was thought to lie in the way of teachers 
also to rely, for their success, rather upon machinery 
than personal exertion ; to rest their reputation rather 
on the forced and artificial attainments of the favored 
few than the less showy but more healthy products of 
general and more disinterested labor. On the whole, 
it was judged by the young men, that the effect of the 
existing system was to exalt the intellectual above 
the moral, by a process that ultimately gave predom- 
inance to the selfish passions ; and that college disci- 
pline thus became, however unwittingly, an occasion of 
increasing those theological, ethical, political, and social 
disorders, — the sectarianism, partyism, intrigue, and 
chicane, which are so commonly revealed in the mal- 
feasance of professional and public men, when so edu- 
cated under the stimulus of a wrong ambition. 

Such was the sense of students. It was not logi- 
cally or philosophically expressed. Rather it was a 
matter of fresh experience, which is not apt to take 
to itself the shape of scientific formularies or of specu- 
lative propositions. It was given at a time when they 
were prepared to judge dispassionately of the prize 



23 



system ; and, after all reasonable allowances, it consti- 
tuted, in the judgment of the Trustees, no inconsid- 
erable objection against it That judgment could not, 
now, be reasonably affected by any different or con- 
trary expression, given in different circumstances and 
different states of mind. For, 

SecomUi/y — It is justified by a higher and more 
searching analysis. 

Accordingly, your Committee go on to suggest, 
in consistency with past judgments of the Board : 
Tliat education presupposes men to be in an infantile 
state of ignorance, weaknes.s, insufficiency, and morally 
oblique ; and that, without discipline, they are inca- 
pable of attaining to the true and only legitimate ends 
of life. It is ba.sed upon the facts of our degraded 
nature and condition, as recorded in Scripture, and 
familiar to the experience of mankind in general. It 
is designed to draw us out of our natural state of 
incompetency, by drawing out our inherent embryo 
faculties, and by exciting, guiding, restraining, and 
regulating them through the superior knowledge, wis- 
dom, and virtue of the already educated and reformed. 
Its work is to train these faculties in due proportion, 
ill harmony with the natural laws of mind, and with 
tlie principles of moral government, as known by natu- 
ral and revealed religion ; and to do this in subservi- 
ency to the proper uses of this present life, and to 
the atUinment, if that be the will of God, of life eter- 
nal, through Jesus Chi'ist, who is the propitiation for 



24 



the sins of the world. Its problem is, Whether the 
teachers and guides of men will conduct it, intelli- 
gently and resolutely, in subjection to these principles, 
and with reference to this design, as true benefactors ; 
or inconsiderately pervert it to the prostitution of the 
human faculties, worse, morally, and more destructive, 
than their original state of darkness and imbecility, — 
"the blind leading the blind till both fall into the 
ditch." 

Let the question be in regard to the education of 
the individual. He possesses instincts, sensibilities, 
affections, tastes, sympathies, intellectual and voluntary 
powers, and a moral sense. We put him into forms, 
and under rules, adapted to develop and train these 
properties of his nature. The work is slow, tedious, 
and uncertain. It is hindered by various physical and 
moral causes, beyond our foresight or control. The 
imperfection of nature is manifest at every stage. 
Accidental difficulties in the social state thicken upon 
us, and aggravate our embarrassments. We adopt 
diverse expedients to quicken the languid powers, to 
correct irregularities, restrain the wayward propensities, 
and check the tendencies to decline. But the best 
success falls short of effort or expectation. The subject 
never attains to a degree of culture commensurate with 
his capacities, or his means of growth. Of this he is 
himself at length convinced; and he dies confessing 
that he has come short in all things, not having profited, 
as he should have done, by the little he has learned, or 



25 



corrected liall" the eiroi-s into which defective teachin'^ 
or liis own folly or vanity, had hetrayed him. In 
respect to the race in general, the progress is equally 
tiirdy, inadequate, and doubtful, except so far as God 
interposes special means and motives to enlightenment 
in (Hlferent periods, and superadds the influences of his 
"-^piil!. What is gained in one age or country is lost 
ill anutiier. Nations rise and fall. The resuscitation 
of the eflete is at best partial and insecure, and, in 
I'espect to the generality, has thus far been found 
impossible. Should a spirit of unbelief and apostasy 
overspread the Christian world, as is clearly supposable 
and possible, our only hope of its restitution would be 
in new an<l more signal manifestations of Divine power. 
Education, however perfect or diifused, could not save 
any people that should obscure the light from heaven. 
Its greatest stimulus would but more extend the sway 
of sophistry, falsehood, and licentiousness, and hasten 
the neces.sary catastrophe ; — as all history confirms. 

Defective methods of education have always been 
reckoned among the causes of the slow progress, and 
the ultimate decline, of States. The degree of defec- 
tiveness has been wisely held to be measurable by the 
preponderance of the material and intellectual, over 
the moral, culture of the young. As they have gained 
in stature and knowledge, they have lost in simplicity 
and virtue. Wanting, or possessing in undue measure, 
the conservatism of truth and rectitude, they have 
used their increased intelligence and power but to 

4 



26 



popularize destructive errors and vices ; and ruin has 
ensued. So Paul accounts for the overthrow oi' pagan 
States, and of the Jewish commonwealth; and his 
reasoning applies with greater emphasis to the anti- 
christian learning of later times. Prostituted Christian 
nations would experience only an aggravation of judg- 
ment for their abuse of a greater Hght. There are not 
wanting proofs or presages of these evils in the present 
atheistic tendencies of the most cultivated portions of 
the Christian world, and the general confusions and 
distress of nations. A studious and devout critic of 
the present state of things would not fail to scrutinize 
the insidious action of these bad moral causes, or to 
be jealous, in his own sphere, of every particular and 
local influence that would add, though but a little, to 
their intensity, and aggravate their results. 

It might seem, on a partial view, a small thing, if 
not invidious, to suggest that the prize system now m 
question would naturally have, in its measure, that 
hurtful tendency. But the reasons for that belief, 
which led to the decision of the Trustees, in years past, 
in a parallel case, have certainly not been lessened by 
any subsequent improvement in the moral or religious 
character of society. On the contrary, the unpre- 
cedented excitement and overgrowth of the material 
and intellectual elements of the present civilization 
have not been slow or imperceptible. The insufficiency 
of moral power to control and limit them, as things 
now are throughout the Christian world, is becoming 



27 



more and more the burden of forccastine^ statesmen, 
and even (jf siinple-niinded observers, wlio have marked 
the clian;res wliieh have taken phiee in a suigle gener- 
ation. The odds is getting to be fearfully against us, 
except as we borrow hope from our speculative ideas, 
rather than our experience. If, therefore, the thing 
l)e sniali, it may nevertheless be real; and its principle 
may well be thought to concern the best interests, not 
n[' a single College only, but of mankind. 

Your Committee would not be understood to iiii[)ly 
that there are no elements and principles of n;iture, 
broken and disordered though it be, to which appeal 
hould be made in stimulating the oppressed energies 
of the young. They have no sympathy with extreme 
and radical or onesided views on this or any other 
subject. That any educational institution or system 
may attiiin to its proper ends, its order should have 
respect to a proportionate discipline of all the faculties, 
by methods pertinent to each. But the successful 
culture of any or every faculty will depend on a 
superior controlling principle common to the whole. 
A general right effect presupposes a general rectifying 
cau.se. Otherwise we have derangement and confusion ; 
the higher and the lower principles are likely to change 
l)laces; if, indeed, that which should of right govern 
l)e not ultimately overthrown. In searching for that 
common principle, we shall best resolve the difficult 
fjuestions now in hand. Let the inquiry, though some- 
what prolonged, be pardoned, lor the sake of import^int 



28 



distinctions too often overlooked, as well as the mag- 
nitude of the ends in view. 

(1) Your Committee turn, first, from that extreme 
opinion which has held the masses of mankind as merely 

.brutish, and denied them any capability of culture but 
such as nature teaches for savage beasts; for, though 
there have been seeming grounds for that opinion in 
the uncouth wildness of many of the more degraded 
portions of the race, it applies not where natural or 
revealed religion has had but the smallest influence 
in opening the intellect, or guiding the consciences, of 
men ; and it should never have been acted upon, even 
among the most besotted cannibals. There are few 
so lost but that some remaining sense of what is lost 
may be reached by wise and benevolent appeals, and 
made to struggle up towards the light that should so 
shed but its faintest ray into the darkened chambers 
of the soul. So Christ has sometimes saved whom men 
have cast away. 

(2) Nor need we have more respect to those soul- 
less teachers of the world who treat society but as a 
machine to be wound up, and kept in play, and put 
on exhibition, for the mere profit of the showmen. 
There are such even where there is great affectation 
of high refinement. But such discipline is a mere 
polish of wheels and levers. We have seen a model 
school after this type of formal excellence : and so 
have we seen a model puppet-show. But the puppet- 
show had this advantage, that it degraded not rational 



20 



and moral boings to the functions of automatons; and 
till' automatons did their work ^vith more precision 
and cclal. They had not the (h'awbaek of a spirit 
hampered by the wires. There was no disturbance 
between a nature within and a nature without, and, 
consequently, no care was requisite to keep a bal- 
ance. Such artificial teachers, and their rote, are nut 
to be accounted of To them even Christ is not likely 
to appeal ; for his mission is to souls. 

(3) Still less is it needful to discuss that more 
extreme and ethereal specific which many r.ow pro- 
pose for the education and recovery of mankind, — 
u general emancipation of the human fiiculties, and 
corresponding changes in all the institutions of the 
social state; a mere voluntary system, a stimulating 
j^hhiffiston of speculative subtleties, to quicken the cir- 
culations, and not a de facto regimen and discipline 
for disordered minds. They would dissolve the moulds 
in which, as they imagine, man's heaven-bom genius 
has been unnaturally shaped, and the trammels by 
which it has been restrained and paralyzed. But they 
propose no practicable substitute. They would extend 
the area of the irresistible spirit of univei-sal liberty, 
that it might assert the constitutional prerogatives of a 
self-determined will, and, peradventure, reach the des- 
tined goal of universal happiness. The manifold dif- 
ficulties, hazards, and consequences of failure, concern 
them not. But before this Board or these Memorial- 
ists it would l)e an insult to discuss this chimerical 



30 



idea. They have not so read the Scrij)ture, nor studied 
men. They would not consent to see a principle set 
up on the earth which was not recognized in heaven, 
and which, when strangely introduced among the sin- 
less inhabitants of that world, subjected the deceived 
among them to everlasting chains and darkness. 

(4) Shall we find what we seek in taste, and make 
that natural sense our motive power ? 

We recognize this faculty in all our discipline, and 
we place no inconsiderable reliance upon its culture, 
as a means to a higher good ; not now, however, accord- 
ing to its philosophical and abstract idea, but only as 
it actually exists in the present abnormal state of our 
active powers. This distinction is of great conse- 
quence ; for, in educating men, we must take things, 
not as they existed originally in the Divine idea, or 
as they came out from the creative hand, but as Scrip- 
ture represents, and experience proves, them to be, 
and to have been, in the life and history of mankind. 
The susceptibility of taste exists in nature ; but it is 
practically of small account, except as it has the mas- 
ter's training. The masters themselves possess it but 
unequally. Their training is unequal ; and their meth- 
ods and their schools are as various as the latitudes. 
It is, therefore, not reducible to a common standard. 
It consequently wants both precision and authority; 
and, at best, it could not be an effectual guide. It 
may come in to relieve and to assist the related facul- 
ties ; but not to rule them ; nor be suffered to over- 



31 



step ibi own domain, wliich is not ol' the inner, but 
the outer, worhl. It is conversant but with the beau- 
ties and deformities of things, their fitnesses and incon- 
!:;ruities, which speak sensuously to ihc mind ; but not 
wilh essences and principles, — realities which are 
known onl\' \)y a higher consciousness. It deals not 
with substances, but wit li forms and shadows; not {\v; 
conscious and living powers, but their phenomena. 
Taste, though in its highest culture it might prepare 
us to admire all the beautiful works of God, or to be 
ravished witii their glorious symphonies, could not 
bring us into harmony with Cod himself It could 
not i)roduce virtue, but it.s semblance ; nor knowledge 
or wisdom ; but only representations of tiieir eflects as 
they strike the admiring intellect But the highest 
culture of this faculty is not now pos.sible, because of 
the infirmities of sense. A vitiated, sensuous nature is 
likely to pervert it, and consequenth' to enslave us 
lo false standards and ideas, from which deliverance 
could be had only by the predominance of a higher 
j)rinciple, — a deliverance which would Ije cheaply pur- 
chased at the expense of all the bewitching beauty 
and syren music that hail enthralled us. This faculty, 
when cultivated on its own account and without sul)- 
Joction to a higher principle, becomes necessarily false; 
and then, in respect to true knowledge, wisdom, and 
virtue, it is worse than rudeness. The pagan nations 
were tasteful, but innnoral. They depressed nature, 
:ind exalted art. They changed the glory of the 



32 



incorruptible God into gnaven images. They built 
magnificent altars and gorgeous temples, and offered 
various and costly sacrifices ; but tlie Godhead was 
unknown. The essential element even of natural ex- 
cellence was wanting. Wherefore those nations fell; 
and their ruin was proportioned to their former gran- 
deur, Esthetics could not save them. Esthetics is 
of sense ; and sense cannot save. Esthetics, without 
a higher principle, is presently dragged down from its 
constitutional simplicity. It loses what remains of its 
created dignity, and becomes a pander to the baser 
appetites. It prostitutes knowledge and wisdom to 
adorn and popularize licentiousness and vice ; to dress 
up deformity; to give graceful attitudes and manners 
to profligacy and crime ; till the evil reaches its clim- 
acteric, and the idolatrous people are hurled to the 
ground. Such is history from the beginning. 

They make a great mistake who imagine that aes- 
thetics has any healing or conserving power; or that, 
without a higher principle, it will not more corrupt us ; 
or that, with a higher principle, it is not likely, as 
things are, without great restraint, to obscure that 
higher principle, enfeeble it, and usurp its place. Ex- 
perience confirms that when the educational stimulus 
is applied to taste, it produces not simple, honest, and 
sincere, but meretricious and fantastic, men ; not a 
chaste bride of Christ, but a scarlet woman ; not a 
manly and vigorous, but luxurious, effeminate, and rot- 



33 



ten state ; till cinircli and state fall into the same 
slough together. A College could not he saved hy art. 
Art is outside of lieart, where true virtue only can reside. 
Art becomes artful, artificial, then superficial, then a 
mere vapor, a painted cloud. Artlessness is hetter. 
"Whose adorning let it not he outward, Ijut inward, 
the ornanR'nt of a meek and ([uiet spirit." Otherwise 
thr man is made for show, and not for use ; not for pro- 
(hict, hut effect Feathers are sometimes beautiful ; hut 
they more become a peacock than a student Clothes, 
orderly, clean, well made, and comely, are a good, 
when they are not dainty, and are paid for. A sloven 
ami an exquisite are equally contemptible. But, a good 
teacher is of greater consequence than a good tailor. 
There is no comparison between a Chesterfield and an 
Arnold, as teachers or models of society. 

(5) Or shall we make our appeal to an}*, and the 
most comprehensive, sense of honor? Yet we are fore- 
closed from appealing now to honor a.s it belongs to 
God, to a perfect state ; the honor which was before 
shame entered ; the honor which wull be when virtue 
sliall return ; the honor which is but ideal in the present 
state. Man was created in honor, but he did not abide. 
AVhat he now calls honor may be his shame. At best, 
it is not a safe reliance. There are generous, humane, 
disinterested, and noble sentiments in the human mind. 
We look upon and love them. They respond to gen- 
erous appeals. They subserve important ends in carrying 

5 



34 - 

on the work of life. But they are mere sentiments, that 
depend on temperament ; not principles, that are vital 
in the soul. Honor gives many signs of its Divine 
oricrinal. Every thing that lives and is sensitive on 
earth turns sometimes to the sun, and reflects his 
beams. But whatever has lost not relationship, but 
affinity, to light, drinks it not in, but reflects it only in 
imsubstantial colors, that fade in a night ; and it perishes 
in its own treacherous aroma. Honor, whatever it be 
in story or in song, in chivalry or diplomacy, in warlike 
hosts or courtly halls, in ermine, tiara, diadem, or 
sceptre, has never saved. It has been brought down 
to the dust with the sound of its viols. It has never 
saved a College. Some of its most pleasant flowers 
spring in college halls. They are good to look upon, 
and have their uses. They remind us of paradise. 
They make the good man long for its return. But 
the wind sweeps over them, and they are gone. Per- 
haps, when next we look, disorder reigns. The flowers 
have perished. The precious fruits are threatened. 
Evil, with its blasts and mildews, balks our better pur- 
poses, and disappoints our hopes. Does honor then re- 
store ? Does it not, by mournful misdirection, increase 
the evil and prevent recovery ? Idleness, disorder, vice, 
are not afraid of college honor. They feel assured of 
concealment and. protection under its broad shadow. 
The greatest weakness of teachers and governors every- 
where is the great strength of honor that covers up 
or mitigates transgression, or pleads against its righteous 



35 



|)imi.shment, or resents the intliction with foul disorders. 
Honor L,n)es forth from college halls true to its false 
ideas ; nut to the general, but the particular ; not to 
virtue, Ijut interest ; not to God, but some fiction of 
liiuaanity. Yet it is true, not to man in general, but 
to a i»arty ; not to a party, but a clu^ue ; and, in the 
last reduction, not to a cli(iue, but the ultimate and 
supreme first personal. Honor liglits its battles, not 
with argument, but pei'sonal abuse ; and strikes back, 
not with words, but blows. It embroils man with man, 
nation with nation ; and the earth must smoke with 
carnage, that honor may have its glory. A Christian 
educator woidd be afraid to rely upon it in the disci- 
pline of the young. There are moods in which he may 
approacli it with effect. But he is dishonored if he has 
no better lioM wlicn the humor turns. 

(6) Or shall the appeal be made to ambition, akin 
to honor, or to emulation, — ambition set on fire ? 

Some lexicographers have ascribed a good as well 
as a bad sense to these active principles. In popular 
discoui-se they are apt to be held as virtues. In educa- 
tional training they are used as legitimate forces by the 
generality in our schools of learning. But, aside from 
all relinements of philosophical definition or of mere 
speculation, your Committee are compelled to believe, 
that, pnictically, in relation to a prize system at a 
College, and in a more comprehensive sense, they are 
mere vices of the mind, and are not to be encouraged. 
For the object then proposed is not the greatest good 



36 



of the individual or the institution, but the best scholar- 
ship ; and the best scholarship, not as a means to the 
greatest good, but the highest distinction ; not the merit 
Avhich is essential to character on the whole, but the 
reputation which is incidental to some variety of intel- 
lectual cultivation ; not the recompense of reward 
which comes as a general consequence of virtue, but 
that which crowns a successful struggle, carried on at 
the expense of virtue. The appeal is made, not to a 
love of essential excellence, but of personal preeminence. 
The stimulus is felt in the wrong place ; not in the 
sense of duty, but the sense of interest ; and its effect 
is to encourage not meekness, which is the ordained 
prerequisite of true wisdom, but the proud and con- 
ceited egotism which goes before destruction. Where- 
fore the ultimate consequence disappoints us. It con- 
sists not in growth, but inflation ; not in a sterling, 
generous, and comprehensive culture, but an over- 
wrought activity of some special faculty, and a wither- 
ing of more vital energies ; and the end is the possible 
attachment to one's name of a string of fardels, to the 
derogation of the properties of essential manhood. By 
insensible degrees these bad results pass over from the 
individual to the many. Society is betrayed to an 
exaltation of the seeming above the real, the shadow 
above the substance, the clothes above the man. A 
civilization which is merely gorgeous, fantastic, imposing, 
delusive, without a basis, is dignified as if it possessed 
the conservative and enduring elements of righteousness 



37 



and truth. When the best scholar is the best man 
because receiving the best rewards, then the most 
cunning orator, the richest merchant, the most ingen- 
ious mechanic, the smoothest gentleman, the most 
curious artist, the sweetest singer, the most accom- 
plished dancer, and the smartest preacher, are, pari 
ratione, the best men. He who raises the best horses, 
sheep, or cattle, the fattest swine, the largest crops, or 
the juiciest fruit, is a better man than his godly neigh- 
bor who despises not the day of smaller things. Society 
is led insensibly to exalt a false and sensuous standard, 
and goes on towards its illusory perfection, till God's 
order is quite reversed, and the reckoning comes. 
Babylon towers above Jerusalem, and sitteth as a queen, 
and drinks its wine out of the vessels of the house of 
the Lord, till " Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin," is written, 
upon the wall. So our Colleges might become, through 
a mistaken principle, like the schools of the overthrown 
nations, the patrons of popular delusion, and the disguised 
sources of destruction. Ambition brings them down. 

These distinctions are of great importance. It is 
one thing to aspire to true 'excellence for its own sake, 
and receive, as a natural consequence, the providential 
recompense of patient continuance in well-doing. It 
is a very different thing to aspire to relative excellence 
for the sake of a factitious prize. The mistake of con- 
founding; these distinctions could not be more mis- 
chievous than in the discipline of the young. In the 
good sense of ambition and emulation, — if, indeed, it be 



38 



not a solecism to affix a good sense to these principles 
of our nature as it is, — a College might be supposed 
a resort of earnest, enterprising, and successful students. 
But it would not become, — as in the bad sense, which, 
as things are, is the practical and true sense, it must 
naturally become, — their race-ground. They would 
imitate the old athletes, as Paul enjoins, not in their 
spirit, but in their systematic and self-denying discipline. 
They would bring their body into subjection, that they 
might better cultivate their higher faculties. They 
would so run that they might attain not necessarily 
to a distinguished name, but a substantial character ; 
not to a high position, but the qualities which deserve 
it ; not to the material, but the vital and essential ; not 
to the earthly, but the heavenly. They would train 
•themselves to labor or to suffer in the pursuit of good, 
and pursue it unto death, consenting even to the fiery 
baptism of our Lord ; but asking not, like the foolish 
mother for her children, that they might sit on his 
right hand and on his left, — which he gives not to 
any who ask it for preeminence. That flilse spirit 
would be fatal ; and He who knows what is in man 
well knew how to rebuke it in his disciples : " And 
Jesus called a little child unto him, and said. Except 
ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into 
the kingdom of heaven." And Paul: "If any man 
among you thinketh to be wise in this world, let him 
become a fool that he may be wise." 

Whatever be the true account of the actual character 



39 



of mankind, it cannot be denied but by romantic per- 
sons and stayers at home, that selfishness is our motive 
power, and sways us till it is checked by the simple 
force of moral principle, or is superseded by a divine 
life. Christianity presupposes this ; and, otherwise, has 
no distinctive significancy above the theories of natural- 
ism, old or new. But selfishness, and that particular 
variety of it which affects greatness and preeminence, 
Ls everywhere destructive. Disorganization is its law. 
It broke up the order of heaven : " By that sin fell the 
angels." It has, in every period, filled the world with 
controversies and wars, and brought upon it correspond- 
ing judgments of outraged nature in pestilence and 
famine. The Scripture so describes it, in no measured 
terms, as producing " hatred, variance, emulations, 
wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, and 
such like." And the offsets are not worth mentioning. 
They make but little figure when accounts are settled. 
Suppose an ambitious and emulous student just follow- 
ing this bent of the deceitful mind. He will be more 
assiduous, probably, for a time, than his better balanced 
neighbor, and seem greater on occasions. But he will 
work unequally, according to his humors, and dispro- 
portionately, according to his policy, plying such facul- 
ties or such branches only as will best suit his ends. 
He will be orderly even to a fault when his formalities 
may be reckoned to the account of virtue, and contribute 
to his success. He will be fawning, truckhng, subser- 



40 



vient; sycophantic, till lie gains his place ; but will then 
fold his arms, and be insolent and overbearing. Or, if 
he succeed not, he will subside into indifference and 
sloth, or be chafed to madness. No passion is more 
engrossing or consuming than disappointed ambition. 
It will make a wreck, for a time, even of a good man, 
and curdle all the milk within him. He will produce 
an acetous fermentation in the whole mass with which 
he happens to be connected. The career of such men 
is revolting to the ingenuous and virtuous mind. In 
its results it becomes fatal to society, except as re- 
strained by the collateral influence of waser and better 
men. In a free, impassioned, and aspiring country 
like our own, the evil soonest culminates. Sects, 
parties, cliques, and coteries, which such ill-taught 
persons lead and represent, insensibly multiply, to the 
utter bewilderment and exasperation of the state, till 
disorganization and overturning ensue. Not so Christ 
taught his disciples : " Ye call me Master and Lord, 
and so I am. If I, then, your Lord and Master, have 
washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's 
feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should 
do as I have done to you." We may not, indeed, 
expect such virtue to be universal, with our best dis- 
cipline, as things are at pi'esent. But, equally, we can 
never expect the present state of things to be improved 
if society be educated with a different spirit. What 
is inconsistent with a true Christianity cannot be favor- 
able to a legitimate progress of mankind ; and we do 



41 



not well, by the use of merely speculative and fanciful 
methods of progress, to perpetuate real and essential 
elements of dechne. 

(7) Your Committee are able to see no reason for 
appealing, in education, to these questionable principles 
of nature, but their admitted great activity, and the 
supposed insufficiency of any higher principles to pro- 
duce the desired stimulus. But it deserves to be con- 
sidered, whether there be not principles in nature itself 
which, if not now so active in general, are yet stronger, 
more authoritative, and more legitimate ; and whether 
their acknowledged comparative inactivity be not owing 
to defective systems and methods of discipline, which the 
guardians of our public institutions should correct. 
Such corrective attempts have sometimes been made, 
and, when made consistently and thoroughly, never, it 
is beheved, without success. Already the introduction 
of a higher ethics to many Colleges has given to stu- 
dents the taste of a purer morahty than was inculcated 
in the text-books of their fathers. The doctrines of 
Butler and Edwards have gone far to supplant the more 
sensuous theories which, for a long season, had fore- 
stalled them. The moral awakening of students above 
referred to in this Report resulted, in great measure, 
from the insensible influence of the change ; and it is 
not to be doubted that a course of general discipline, 
corresponding to the higher ethical ideas now exten- 
sively admitted, would result in proportionally extensive 
and lasting benefits. It could not be thought otherwise 

6 



42 



without disparaging the design and influence of educa- 
tion in general, and distrusting the good providence of 
God. 

When the change of system at this College received 
the last sanction of the Trustees, it was under the pro- 
found conviction of those on whom the responsibility 
of administration chiefly rested, and who had given 
careful attention to the subject, that consistency required 
it, and that, otherwise, the incongruity between what 
was taught and what was practised would be deeply 
injurious to all parties. The principles had been ad- 
mitted, and were given out as authoritative, that, in all 
discipline, the intellectual has, of right, no precedency 
above the moral ; that not philosophy, but Scripture, 
is the guide of life ; that the conscience is constitution- 
ally supreme over all the natural faculties ; and, when 
taught by natural and revealed religion, with the con- 
current testimony of Christian teachers and their con- 
sistent administration of affairs, produces the most 
wholesome excitement of the intellectual powers, and 
the best restraint of the appetites and passions. It was 
judged that no legalized departure from these princi- 
ples could be justifiable or safe ; and no fears were 
entertained that a persistent integrity would fail to 
secure to the College whatever favor or patronage 
would be most conducive to its essential usefulness and 
enduring prosperity. That confidence has not been 
disappointed. Good hopes have even been exceeded. 
The College has gained real and great advantages ; and 



43 



these are referable, in no small degree, ta its firm but 
courteous and circumspect adherence to such elementary 
ideas, and to the blessing of God attendant upon an 
honest deference to his will. After such experience, 
your Committee would hesitate even to seem to change 
position. They would greatly deprecate a return, 
though partial, that should be really a return to a lower 
platform. They still doubt not, that, while the discipline 
of College is kept in harmony with the principles recog- 
nized and taught in its accepted classics, and more 
especially enjoined in Scripture, its design will be meas- 
urably answered, and its prosperity be sure. But, 
contrarily, any repugnance between theory and practice, 
though possibly productive of occasional and temj)orary 
reliefs from difficulties incident to any and every con- 
dition, would engender greater difficulties, which no 
antecedent reckoning could measure, and no administra- 
tive ability could overcome. A false ethical idea, practi- 
cally admitted in the training of the young, is apt to 
draw after it a train of injurious consequences, which 
at length defies resistance and precludes recovery. It 
may be confidently affirmed, though not without hazard 
of reproach, that a disproportionate stimulus of the 
intellect, and a contrary undervaluing of moral disci- 
pline, have already overspread society with those varieties 
of instinctive, sentimental, inductive, speculative, and 
spiritualistic unbelief, — the many phases of false phi- 
losophy, — the pride and boast of a towering rationafism, 
— which, under the color and promise of reform, threaten 



44 



speedier and more fatal dissolution ; for they virtually 
exclude God from his own universe, and forbid his 
children, on the highest pains and penalties, to sound 
an alarm. 

Your Committee judge that a proper education of 
the conscience of students would secure the best pos- 
sible exercise of all the faculties, and the highest useful- 
ness and dignity of a College, short of what God only 
can effect. It is our best natural reliance, so consti- 
tuted and ordained, by which God himself holds and 
moves and trains us during our term of discipleship 
and probation in the present world ; and it is vain to 
aifect a higher wisdom than the Divine. The con- 
science is susceptible, responsive, tractable. Education, 
rightly conducted, draws it out, first, midst, last ; and it 
is enthroned. It subordinates all other principles, — the 
instincts, tastes, sentiments, imaginations ; or, so far as 
they are legitimate, uses them for its higher ends. It 
is a regulator, a balance, keej)ing in due and propor- 
tionate activity all other functions of the mind. It holds 
its disorderly principles in check. It is as the power 
of gravity preserving the spheres in orbit. Without it 
they would rush, and dissolution would ensue. We can 
imagine no sufficient substitute ; and to attempt a sub- 
stitute, except the higher and supernatural principle 
of love, would be like scattering moonshine through 
the realms of space to keep the spheres in order. All 
reform, without a moral principle, produces but a worse 
reaction, — as experience would better teach, philan- 



■45 



thropy, if that were not so slow to entertain any 
thing but its own chimerical ideas. We can drive, 
amuse, and flatter men; we can allure them by pleas- 
ant sights and sounds; or scare them by bugbears 
and chimeras; or overpower their confused intellects 
by specious sophistries ; or captivate their morbid fan- 
cies by transcendental visions, or alleged messages from 
the spirit-world ; and thereby relieve an occasional dis- 
tress, or produce a momentary exhilaration, a livelier 
action of the mind, or a general agitation of society. 
But this is of no account, at best, in comparison with a 
carefully educated sense of right and wrong; and, at 
the worst and most likely, it annuls or stupefies or per- 
verts the conscience, and results in general derange- 
ment. Or, if we combine these heterogeneous forces, or 
let them change works in the education and govern- 
ment of the world, we paralyze the strong arm ; we 
disorder the foundations ; and, in the long run, lose 
the very benefits that were proposed in adopting the 
specious compromise. 

Society everywhere is bad ; the conscience is greatly 
blinded, and at best opposes but a feeble barrier to 
the prejudices and passions of men, when these are 
excited from without. But it was not meant to act on 
the line of prejudice and passion. It will not, when 
taught by Scripture, and by men of God ; and it 
should be kept true to its constitutional design. Other- 
wise a wrong educational bias makes it, not an antag- 
onist, but an apologist, of evil ; and, insensibly, our 



46 



moral defences are broken down. A Christian culture 
gives it a right direction. Use accumulates its energy ; 
every appeal to it is likely to carry God's mysterious 
blessing with it ; and the good results are sure. Well 
taught and unsophisticated young men respond to a 
right appeal to the moral sense as they do not and 
could not to any lower principle. The response is 
sometimes deep ; deeper than it seems ; deeper than 
is acknowledged. The higher principles of the mind 
are stirred ; a new resolve succeeds ; a better order, 
more vigorous study, and a more virtuous life. A more 
j)rofound sense of responsible manhood is produced, a 
healthier freedom of the will, a loftier courage, a more 
generous activity ; and then the greatest work of nat- 
ural discipline is done. Do we discourse to such of the 
agreeable and the comely, of the dignity of scholarship, 
of the triumphs they may achieve, the laurels they 
may win? We may divert them from their better 
thoughts, inflate them by our pleasant pictures and 
gilded promises, and excite them to seek the treacher- 
ous boon. But they cease to respect us or to respect 
themselves when they are thus induced to honor vir- 
tue, not for its own sake, but for its prize. The pres- 
sure of an enlightened conscience is better. It is more 
effectual. It is more enduring. It is likely to be sav- 
ing. The teacher has gained all that is possible to man 
when he has so reached the student's soul, not by a 
sensuous artifice, but by a living truth. 

There are great evils and dangers in college life, 



47 



growing out of the disproportionate activity of indiffer- 
ent principles, or the stimulus of the selfish desires, 
which, under any system, forms, rules, and laws cannot 
reach. They can be controlled only by the moral 
sense. Such are the frequent jealousies, competitions, 
party spirit, the fret of college politics, supposed con- 
flicting interests of classes or societies, diversities of 
occasional plans and measures for study, exercise, or 
play, which all concern not the relations of students to 
the College, but to one another. Sometimes great irri- 
tations are thus produced. A sudden friction devel- 
ops the latent heat, and threatens conflagration. The 
best men are liable to ignite the soonest, from the quick 
susceptibility of the moral sense. But as the questions 
then at issue have generally no direct concern with 
conscience, when that is cleared and righted, order is 
restored. They are questions, not of right, but policy ; 
not vital, but prudential ; affecting not the virtue or 
safety of the parties, but their pleasure or convenience ; 
not their character, but their name or influence; not 
their merit, but position. The heat, however violent, 
subsides when the appeal Hes back of nerves and 
blood and temper, or policies and measures, to a prin- 
ciple that is moral, essential, and eternal. When that 
speaks, as it does, under a consistent Christian training, 
it is as when the voice that bids it sjoeak once ener- 
gized over the stormy sea of Galilee, rebuking the 
winds and the waters, and there was a great calm. 
(8) Your Committee are here brought naturally to 



48 



a point, which, in their judgment, is most of all impor- 
tant ; namely, the Christian character of educated young 
men. It is out of question, that this is the desirable 
end of all learning and discipline ; and that, inasmuch 
as any College fails in this respect, it comes short of its 
great design ; for true knowledge, wisdom, and virtue 
are attainable only so far as the human faculties are 
brought into correspondence with the mind of God, and 
conformity with his system of the world revealed by his 
Son from heaven. 

Whether a truly Christian education should not begin, 
continue, and end with the cultivation of the moral 
element, and whether, in this respect, our best institu- 
tions of learning are not in fault, your Committee do 
not here inquire. That will be better understood when 
time shall have more fully tested our present methods. 
It is sufficient to insist, that it should, at least, rise with 
systematic culture from the sensuous, the sentimental, 
the formal, the intellectual, to that higher platform ; 
that the conscience, taught not artificially but from 
Scripture, should be the ultimate, regulating principle 
of all natural activity ; and that then only a Christian 
character is likely to be superinduced. It is the office 
of the conscience, so instructed, to bring the mind into 
a view of its relations to God. This may be regarded 
its peculiar work, in distinction from the mere humani- 
ties. It points heavenward. It has respect to an eternal 
retribution. It awakens awe, reverence, fear ; and these 
are described as the beginning of wisdom. Experience 



49 



shows that young men, if they acquire a Christian char- 
acter at all, make this necessary beginning. It is their 
point of departure from a lower to a higher sphere. 
Apprehending and fearing God, they begin to contem- 
plate the vast realities that grow out of their relations 
to his moral government. They begin to see things as 
they are. They begin to sink the conceptional, the 
imaginary, in the actual ; to apprehend their own char- 
acter and their prospects as God describes them. They 
begin to know themselves, — their selfishness, impurities, 
disorders, irregularities, weaknesses, insufficiency, neces- 
sities, and the effects and consequences of sin in general. 
They begin to feel. They begin to tremble. They 
begin to pray. They begin to apprehend the Gospel. 
God's plan of restoring the lost order of the soul, the 
lost order of the universe, begins to open upon their 
minds. They begin, then, if God so pleases, to see also 
the glory and sufficiency of Christ ; and as His almighty 
word produces the divine life within them, they begin 
to love. Then the end is gained. They are saved. 
The lost principle of order is reproduced within them. 
The work for which mainly we educate them is done ; 
and what follows, upon a continued Christian discipline, 
is the highest possible development of all their faculties, 
under the highest of all principles, — a Christian love. 
It is the greatest sight on earth. Every Christian 
teacher has witnessed such results of his disinterested 
and faithful labors. How extensive they could become 
under a more consistent and vigorous Christian disci- 

7 



50 



pline, it is, of course, impossible to judge beforehand. 
But if there be a Hmit to the Divine blessing upon 
divinely appointed means of education, that hmit is not 
known, and our ignorance in that respect suggests no 
discouragement to the vigorous use of them. At least 
it may be said, that if such means avail not to so desir- 
able an end, it would be unwise to reckon upon mere 
questionable expedients. It is not probable, that the 
causes existing in the mind of students, to prevent the 
success of the higher and the legitimate, would insure 
any desirable success to the lower and the doubtful. 

However, so far as any College should become im- 
bued with the Christian spirit, it is certain there must 
be order, and the fruits of it, in the best possible culture 
of young men. If Christianity, not merely as a doc- 
trinal but vital institution, be any thing, in this respect, 
it is every thing. It is every thing objectively in respect 
to doctrine, and every thing subjectively in respect to 
life. It strikes for a perfect body and a perfect soul. 
Christ established the order of the universe, and he 
alone restores the disordered scene. There cannot but 
be similitudes and foretastes of that promised restitution 
wherever His divine power reaches, touches, and renews. 
AU the treasures of knowledge, wisdom, and virtue, are 
in him. Whether any true natural knowledge could be 
gained, in a comprehensive sense, except as one should 
take his departure from Christianity, and correct his 
observations by it, some might plausibly affirm, though 
the natural and moral are but integral related parts of 



51 



one comprehensive system, whose centre is Christ. That, 
if it be a problem, may yet be solved adversely to all 
the instinctive, inductive, or speculative wisdom which, 
in all periods, has affected a pagan independence of 
supernatural enhghtenment. But, upon the admission 
of Christianity, it cannot be a question, that the Chris- 
tian, other things being equal, is most likely to know 
truly whatever lies within the range of the human 
faculties, and to make the wisest and best discourse 
of it for the benefit of mankind. It is equally out 
of question that a Christian College, when not meas- 
ured by the superficial standards which are apt to 
be most agreeable to popular ideas, but, in a truly 
scientific and liberal view, must attain to the truest dig- 
nity, and contribute most effectually to the pubHc good. 
It is a restored microscosm, all whose parts then take 
their proper place, shape, proportion, relation, impulse, 
movement; and circle, in wondrous harmony, around 
the central sun. A health-giving atmosphere surrounds 
it, — a clear blue heaven of affection, confidence, cheer- 
fulness, earnestness, energy, faithfulness, hope, peace, 
whether in a state of activity or repose. It would 
doubtless, then be possible to fall out of a right adjust- 
ment ; but it would be scarcely possible to remain dis- 
ordered. There might be a mistake, a wrong, a jar, 
and confusion likely to ensue. But the vital, centraliz- 
ing force would control, restore, preserve. On such a 
scene a mysterious spirit of conservation spreads all 
through and all around. Every wound heals by the 



52 



first intention ; and the recuperative processes are like 
a new creation. Free minds, loving hearts, cheerful 
faces, courteous intercourse, peaceful halls, vigorous 
study, large accomplishment, dignify the scene. Truth 
abides, law is honored, virtue reigns. The church and 
the state open themselves to receive the reviving influ- 
ence. They reflect a corresponding patronage, and the 
common Christianity insures the common salvation. 
That is the true glory of any College ; and it becomes 
the glory of any people, though, as yet, it is but ' the 
desire of nations.' 

Tliis is certainly not an extravagant ideal, unless 
Christianity itself be regarded as a chimera, and practi- 
cally a failure. Or if it be an ideal, in the sense of 
exceeding any considerable realization in the past or 
present, the failure certainly is not chargeable upon 
Christianity itself, but our one-sided and partial use of 
it ; — a reproach which can only be wiped away by our 
higher exercise of the Christian spirit. It must be 
removed if we would not suffer the Christian schools to 
become, like the academies of the pagan ages, patrons of 
philosophical unbelief, and instruments of popular de- 
cline. 

Your Committee have great diffidence in propounding 
views so little in accordance with received ideas and 
established methods. They would have deprecated 
beforehand the occasion now given of questioning the 
opinions, more or less settled, of your Memorialists, 
many of whom are personally known to them, and from 




63 



whose judgment, on any subject which had been well 
considered by them, no prudent man would willingly 
dissent But Providence asks not our leave, and heeds 
not our poor wisdom, in its ordering of events. We are 
sometimes called to speak when we should have chosen 
silence. It is not, then, the part even of prudence to 
be unfaithful to our best convictions. There are greater 
evils than an honest conflict of opinions, among intelli- 
gent and good men, on questions like the present, that 
reach so far, and yet have happened to be discussed so 
little. Its worst probable consequence is a temporary 
personal inconvenience. The result is likely to be a 
better clearing up, and a final settlement, of truth. 

But it should be observed, that the objections above 
taken to the propositions of your Memorialists apply 
only so far as they contemplate a system of scholarships 
and prizes as a stimulus to literary competition. To 
reward merit is legitimate; to encourage talent and 
industry is a duty ; and to assist worthy and enterprising 
young men in their pursuit of knowledge under the 
disadvantages of friendlessness and poverty is one of the 
highest offices of benevolence. Your Committee would 
not even seem to contravene this law of Providence. 
They would advocate the endowment of scholarships, or 
other methods of quickening the zeal of students, to any 
extent that might consist with the principles which they 
have here attempted to explain. Such charities, by 
whomever bestowed, and in whatever form, could not 



54 



fail to be honorable to the College and useful to the 
State. 

Your Committee beg leave to propose the following 
Resolutions : — 

Resolved, That this Board entertains a profound 
sense of the wisdom and judgment of the Memorialists, 
and of their zeal for good learning and public virtue, as 
well as the best interests of their Alma Mater; and 
would hereby express to them sincere regret in being 
constrained to differ from them on the questions they 
have submitted. 

Resolved, That this Board will heartily cooperate 
with the Memorialists, or other friends of the College, 
for the endowment of scholarships in accordance with 
the views above expressed, or in other measures which 
may induce, worthy young men to seek the benefits of a 
public education, or serve to quicken their honest zeal 
in its pursuit 

Resolved, That the above Memorial and Report be 
printed, and distributed at the discretion of the Pruden- 
tial Committee. 

N. LORD, for the Committee. 



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